


Blighted Deep Roads

by middlemarchingfic



Series: Codices [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-08-08 09:55:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7753042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarchingfic/pseuds/middlemarchingfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Varric contracts the Blight instead of Carver.</p><p>A series of AU oneshots about Varric's life as a Grey Warden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Yards ahead of him, Hawke stood at the mouth of a gradually narrowing, swiftly darkening tunnel and said, “What’s the hold-up, Varric?” before the black converged on Varric Tethras and swallowed him up.

In retrospect, he should have foreseen this dire plot twist while constructing the preamble of his adventure story. It was a good twist, too, wholly unexpected, a slap in the face of the tried and true, “contentious younger brother of the protagonist falls prey to his own bravado and is thus forced to face his demons and grow as a person in the moments before death” trope, which had turned into such a reliable literary staple as to become cliche. If anyone could take a sad song and coax it into singing a new note or two, it was Varric Tethras, but as a general rule, he preferred a major key change as opposed to a minor. That metaphor was careening wildly out of control, and was probably in equal turns the responsibility of his own ludicrous sense of humor, and the fever.

Perhaps it was for the best, then, that he had never let slip to Carver his role as the sacrificial lamb in this morbid tale of two estranged brothers and the sad circumstances that were destined to divide them. If the boy hadn’t been so preoccupied staring at him, ashen with fear and grief, Varric doubted he would have been able to resist a smug, ‘Who’s laughing now, dwarf?’

If this was the end of the story, what a wretched and anticlimactic conclusion his end had turned out to be.

He heard Anders say, “Bring him into the light, let me look at him,” saw the ground drop away from his feet, and realized with a belated twinge of indignation that Hawke had physically lifted him from where he’d fallen against the stone and carried him over to the meager fire they’d kindled for warmth. An hour ago the sudden heat against his side would have been a welcome relief from the Deep Roads’ chill, but ate up with fever as he was now, he felt his insides churn with the uncheckable impulse to vomit, and so he did just that.

“Maker, Varric,” Hawke said, but endured the sick down the front of his stained grey coat with little more than a pained grimace and a hand to his shoulder. “I guess you were right after all. The nug meat did go off a week ago.”

“Oh.” Varric voiced a wet sound in the back of his throat and felt his stomach lurch again when he tasted bile, and something else, something black and bitter that sent a cold, creeping sensation up the back of his neck. He swallowed thickly. “Well. I did tell you.”

They were kind and didn’t contradict him, but they didn’t have to. Anders bore all the trappings of a good liar, but right now he was ruining it with his soulful, earnest, annoyingly easy to read brown eyes. It was a little disappointing. “Don’t keep me waiting,” he managed to say. “What’s the verdict, Blondie?”

Anders sighed and looked away. “Oh, Varric...”

He didn’t have to finish. Varric was more than capable of supplying the rest of the tale for him. “That bad, huh.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Say, any of you know where I could get fitted for another tabard? This one’s, uh. Snug.”

“Oh, the Joining wasn’t so bad.” Varric sat at the head of a table in the mess hall flanked on either side by green Vigil soldiers who looked like they’d never handled a blade not meant for reaping crops. “I mean, that’s about all I can tell you about it. Top secret oath of silence, you know how it goes. Say, any of you know where I could get fitted for another tabard? This one’s, uh. Snug.”

“Yet you must have incredible endurance, Ser Dwarf. And bravery,” said one of the soldiers. She looked like she could have been Junior’s age, maybe a year younger. She exchanged anxious glances with the other soldiers around her. “We know that many a recruit who undertakes the Joining have never been heard from again. And there are such dark rumors about the Warden-Commander.”

“If those rumors have anything to do with her supposed murder of her brother and installation of a puppet monarch on the throne of Orzammar, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.” Varric glanced towards Margot Aeducan as she strode with precise, economic motion through the mess hall towards the Keep’s grand doors. “That’s just politics.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Drop me a line soon. In all seriousness, I could use a little pick-me-up."

_ A letter addressed to Hawke. It sits atop a stack of drafts of itself--some neatly folded, some crumpled up and tossed aside.  _

Hawke,

I hear they’re calling you the Champion of Kirkwall these days, which I guess is a step or three up from Lowtown Shit-Disturber. Well done! I’d’ve paid good dwarven gold to see the look on Knight-Commander Meredith’s face when the city chose an apostate as its golden boy. Shame I missed it, but fortunately I’ve got a pretty vivid imagination. 

I’m imagining it right now, actually. It’s pretty great. Maybe I’ll draw a picture for you. Flip this page over.

Anyway, I’m settling in fine--making new friends, even managing to keep some of them. It wasn’t hard--everyone likes a good story when they’re drunk, and people here tend to stay pretty drunk when they’re off-duty. Warden-Commander Aeducan runs a tight ship, but even she knows that us lowly grunts need time to blow off a little steam after a long day on our feet.

How’s life in sunny, sand-blasted Kirkwall? Have you squandered away all your riches on men and liquor yet? 

Drop me a line soon. In all seriousness, I could use a little pick-me-up.

All the best from Ferelden’s sweaty armpit,

Varric

**Author's Note:**

> Originally inspired by an LJ prompt! I posted this story to AO3 a couple years ago, but accidentally deleted it (oops). Reposting it now.
> 
> This story will never be marked as complete, and will be updated occasionally over time when I feel like adding to it.


End file.
